Quinn's POV
When we arrived at the estate, he helped the nauseous, morning-sick mistress up the grand staircase to the master suite and told the kitchen staff to prepare her favorites.
On his way back down, he saw me heading toward the guest wing, dragging my suitcase behind me across the marble floor.
He paused. Then he muttered to the chef without looking at me, "Make two more dishes. The ones Quinn likes. Set three places."
That actually caught my attention. Was that remorse? A flicker of guilt? A weak, pitiful attempt to play house while his mistress slept in the room we once shared?
I didn't know whether to laugh or spit. He couldn't remember the day we met, but sure — go ahead and have the chef whip up my favorite meal. Maybe he thought a plate of grilled rosemary lamb could undo what he did to me. Maybe in his mind, a properly set table at the Montecchio estate still meant family, still meant everything was fine. That the blood oath he'd broken could be mended with a linen napkin and a glass of Barolo.
I clenched my jaw, said nothing, and kept walking.
I stepped into the guest room, closing the door quietly behind me. The silence was heavy, suffocating, as if the walls themselves knew I didn't belong here anymore. The room smelled faintly of cedar and disuse. A crucifix hung above the headboard, its brass Christ figure staring down with hollow pity.
I set my bag down on the edge of the bed and knelt to unzip it. The second the zipper peeled open, I stopped cold.
All of my clothes had been shredded. Torn into ribbons with clean, deliberate cuts. Silk blouses reduced to rags. Cashmere sliced with surgical precision. Damn it. But tucked deep into the lining, right where I'd hidden them, my passport and documents remained untouched.
For a second, I just sat there, stunned. Who would do this?
I didn't have to think long. Of course it was Nina. Who else would be petty and cruel enough to tear my things apart like this? But I had no time to confront her. Not now.
Let her think she'd won. I had more important things to do, like getting out of here alive.
I was crouched by the bed, shoving the last few salvageable items into my bag when I heard the door creak open behind me.
Nina Valducci stood in the doorway, one hand hanging lazily at her side, holding a small black bottle. The kind without a label. Her eyes roamed the room like she was touring a crime scene, her nose practically wrinkling at the guest-wing decor, at the lesser furniture, at the idea that I'd been reduced to this. Then her gaze landed on me, and if looks could kill, I'd already be in a shallow grave somewhere outside the city.
"Wow, Quinn. You're really something." Her voice dripped with theatrical amusement. "After all the humiliation I've put you through in front of every Don and Donna in the region, you still cling to this family like a tick."
She tilted her head mockingly, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe as if this were her house. As if it had always been hers.
"Oh, right. Your grandmother passed last month, didn't she?" Her tone softened into something worse than cruelty. False sympathy. "Now that your only real family is gone, of course you're clinging to Zane like he's your last lifeline."
Then she giggled. A small, bright sound that belonged in a different world, a kinder one.
"Remember how you begged him to fly you out to see her one last time? You know why he didn't?"
She waved her phone, the screen catching the low light.
"Because he promised to take me to the coast that day. We watched the sunset together. This kiss photo? Taken right then."
Her words hit me slowly, like cracks spreading through glass. Each one a fracture, hairline at first, then splitting wider, deeper. The more they sank in, the more something inside me started to boil.
She'd known. She knew exactly what she was doing when she showed me that photo. When she talked about the helicopter. My grandmother. That day I'd begged Zane, on my knees in his study, the mahogany desk between us like a barricade, to let me see her one last time. My nonna. The woman who raised me after my parents were killed. The only person in this world who had loved me without conditions, without transactions, without blood oaths or family politics.
And he chose Nina.
He chose a sunset with his mistress over letting me say goodbye to the woman who gave me everything.
The weight of it all pressed down on me. My jaw clenched, fists tightening at my sides as the room spun with heat and rage. Every survival instinct I possessed stirred, something feral and long-buried growling low inside my chest, just as my self-control snapped clean in two.
"You think this is funny?" I hissed, rising to my feet. My voice came out low and raw, barely human. "You think tearing down what little I have left makes you what? His Donna?"
Nina raised her brows, smiling like a snake sunning itself on a warm rock. Unthreatened. Untouchable. "I don't need to be Donna. I already have everything."
"You have nothing," I snapped, the words ripping out of me before I could stop them. "You're a parasite. A leech clinging to scraps."
